


The Outside World

by Lemon (lemon_sprinkles)



Series: Soldier's Heart [7]
Category: Mass Effect Trilogy
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Destroy Ending, Don't worry it'll all work out, Established Relationship, Fluff and Angst, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Post-War, Recovery, minor injury
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-30
Updated: 2018-05-30
Packaged: 2019-05-10 05:49:38
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,950
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14731137
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lemon_sprinkles/pseuds/Lemon
Summary: After the Reaper War the fear of the unknown rules Shepard's very existence, his entire life consumed by thoughts about the dangers of the outside world. But when something happens to the one person who makes the unpredictable predictable, Shepard takes hold of his fears and reclaims a piece of himself in the process.





	The Outside World

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Keiend86](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=Keiend86).



> Written for the lovely Keiend86 who requested a story wherein Shepard rushes off to see Kaidan after an accident at work. Set after the Reaper War, destroy ending. Loosely based in my Soldier's Heart universe. 
> 
> Thank you to MissAnnaRaven for her amazing beta skills!

Shepard feared the outside world.

He never used to, and the fact that he did now infuriated him, but try as he might to quell the unease it all amounted to the same result—he dreaded going outside.

There were corners that were unprotected and people that were unknown; sights and sounds that resembled things they shouldn’t—things he’d defeated years ago. Smells, innocuous to all intents and purposes, could spark a memory he wasn’t yet prepared to deal with.

The outside world was unknown; it was dangerous; it was _different_.

Inside his house Shepard had control. He knew the openings and exists, knew any faults in the security and had prepared for those through careful, obsessive planning. Smells reminded him only of home and of comfort—of Kaidan—and the people who visited were known and planned. It was a controlled, safe environment where Shepard could be himself.

He could be what he once was.

Through therapy Shepard learned to handle certain sections of the public world. His neighborhood became familiar, and Shepard found himself venturing out more and more without Kaidan at his side. No longer did he order in his groceries but made the short journey to the local store to pick them up himself, cane in hand that he was fully prepared to use as a weapon.

Thankfully the only time Shepard had actually thought to use his ‘weapon’ was when he’d faced the horror of an avocado sale teeming with greedy middle aged wives and one very excited Krogan.

Shepard had, through time and patience with himself, learned to take hold of his anxiety about being outside—exposed and unprotected—and mold it into something he could handle.

But that didn’t extend to anywhere beyond the little bubble of his neighborhood. A park could be particularly beautiful and just as safe as any other park, but if it was somehow past the point of Shepard’s neighborhood he didn’t dare venture toward it.

Unfamiliarity spoke of danger.

But familiarity could also breed a certain kind of anxiety.

The Alliance Headquarters, still being rebuilt but familiar in its core structure, was a place Shepard hadn’t returned to in years.

All in all, when Shepard was alone, his neighborhood was the furthest he’d wander. Road signs and landmarks told him when to stop, and the twitch in his jaw and the tightening of his chest did the rest.

Shepard feared the outside world.

XX

“I’m getting a batch of new kids in tomorrow.”

Shepard grunted a reply. It was all he could do lest he pop a muscle. Since the multiple surgeries simple exercises like crunches had become a bitch of a thing to do. Still, the burn was a familiar burn, and Shepard took comfort in it.

Kaidan’s firm grasp on his ankles was helping. And the sight of Kaidan’s smiling face when he did a successful crunch? Total perfection.

“How many?” he asked on the downswing.

“Report says twelve, but you never know. Some kids uh… find a way to get out of it.”

“Scared?”

“More like typical teenagers who don’t want their summer ruined by having to train their ‘biotic potential’ in a musty old gym.”

Shepard saw the cheeky glint in Kaidan’s eyes as he strained back up toward his knees.

“Speaking from experience?” he asked quickly, afraid he’d lose all the air in his lungs.

Crunches didn’t used to be this fucking hard.

“Maybe a little,” Kaidan said with a chuckle.

Collapsing back on the floor, Shepard ignored how his knee screamed out at the bent position it was in and instead focused on the satisfying stretch in his stomach. He could once again feel the outline of his abs. It was… good. Good to know that maybe he could get closer to what he once was.

One day.

“You’re a good teacher, Kaidan. The kids are lucky to have you—even if they don’t know it yet.”

Kaidan let go of his ankles and began massaging his knee, trying to relax it enough to get it out of its cramped position. Obviously he had decided Shepard was done for the evening.

Once again, Kaidan was his voice of limitation and rationality.

“I’ve just had experience with really bad authority figures, you know? These kids are just now discovering their biotic potential and I… I don’t want it to be a terrifying thing, you know? I want to give them the stability I never had.”

“Yeah…”

“So if that means ruining a summer for them so they can, I dunno… function in their day-to-day next summer? I think it’s worth it.”

“Yeah. I think so too. Wish I’d had you as my teacher when I was a student. Maybe I wouldn’t have dropped out of high school.”

Kaidan chuckled, low and husky, and Shepard found he was suddenly interested in an entirely different kind of exercise.

Stretching his legs out, he managed to slide his ass up on to Kaidan’s lap, and it didn’t take much coaxing for Kaidan to collapse on top of Shepard. Immediately Shepard grabbed fistfuls of Kaidan’s hair and began mussing it up, working his curls out of their professional gelled hold.

He loved Kaidan like this—unkempt, grinning from ear to ear, hot breath dancing across Shepard’s cheeks and jaw as he nuzzled in close.

“Careful now… I have to be up early tomorrow,” Kaidan mumbled, lips brushing Shepard’s. He was braced above—solid and warm and steadying—and Shepard ran his hands along his shoulders and down his arms, grasping his hands in his own.

“You may be an L2, K, but you’re not _that_ old. It’s only nine…”

“They just came out with the L8.”

They both paused.

“I uh… I just said I was old, didn’t I?” Kaidan mumbled.

“You’re fucking ancient.”

“Shit.”

Shepard kissed him.

XX

It wasn’t often that Shepard slept in.

More to the point, it wasn’t often that Shepard _slept_.  

But that morning was an exception, apparently. He woke to gentle sunlight streaming in through a crack between the curtains and the trill of a sparrow outside. Kaidan had gone to work well over an hour ago, and in his sleep Shepard had managed to find his way to Kaidan’s side of the bed, face pressed in his pillow and body sinking into the warm spot Kaidan had left behind.

He ached all over, but in a good way. A very, very good way.

His breath, however, demanded his attention, and it was with some reluctance that Shepard crawled out of bed and headed to the bathroom. Morning breath was bad enough, but morning breath after sex? It left something to be desired.

It was when Shepard was enjoying the ritual of the morning poop that his omni-tool began to flash on his wrist. He glared at the orange ball as it pulsated against his skin, annoyed that someone had called him in the middle of what he deemed a sacred time. Part of him thought better of answering the call while he was on the toilet, but the renegade side of him took over and he synced the call up with the speakers in the house.

“Shepard speaking.”

“Hello Mr. Shepard,” a woman’s voice said up above, echoing in the tiled space. “Are you the partner to Major Alenko?”

“Yes…” he said, already suspicious. Finishing his duties, he started to clean up as the woman spoke.

“I’m calling on behalf of the staff at Admiral Anderson Alliance Hospital to inform you that your common-law partner was involved in an accident today.”

Shepard felt the floor give way as he stood. Gripping the counter next to the toilet, he tried to stay upright as his stomach roiled and blood pumped thunderously loud throughout his head. Kaidan… Kaidan was in an accident. Kaidan was in a hospital after an accident.

Kaidan was hurt.

Shepard didn’t hear what else the nurse had to say. He didn’t _care_ what she had to say. Her voice echoed—calm and entirely too put together around the bathroom—but all Shepard could focus on was how Kaidan was fucking _hurt_.

Turning off his omni-tool he cut the call off, her voice still ringing in his ears with information every loved one dreaded hearing.

Accident, accident, accident, accident—it sounded strange and foreign and grotesquely horrifying as it replayed again and again in his head.

Getting a grip on the edge of the sink, Shepard hauled himself upright and stared at himself in the mirror, panic-stricken eyes staring back at him.

Kaidan was hurt and Kaidan needed him.

Pushing away from the counter, Shepard hurtled out of the bathroom, leg screaming at him as he practically ran to the dresser and began throwing on clothes, a collection of his own and Kaidan’s adorning his body in a manner of seconds. He went into auto-pilot, grabbing what he needed—cane, hoodie, anxiety medication—all with the suffocating knowledge that Kaidan had been hurt threatening to drag him down into the abyss below.

But he had to keep it together. For Kaidan.

Hobbling out of the house, Shepard gripped his cane and hurried as fast as he could to his car, ignoring the tremble in his hands as he started the ignition and pulled out from the driveway, narrowly missing their neighbors’ potted plant that resided at the end of the lane.

The drive to the hospital took both seconds and an eternity, Shepard replaying the phone call in his head a million times over. Accidents were part and parcel with being in the Alliance and you had to get used to it or you’d crumble under the pressure. Accidents happened all the damn time. But this one was different. This one wasn’t two Alliance soldiers fighting side by side, protecting one another and undergoing trauma _together_. This was a soldier and his civilian partner, lightyears apart, both alone and unable to see the damage and feel the pain together.

This was completely different, and Shepard was falling apart at the seams thinking about what state Kaidan would be in.

He couldn’t handle another Mars. He couldn’t.

Approaching the hospital, Shepard missed the turnoff for parking but wasn’t about to go all the way around again. Instead he pulled up to the drop-off zone and parked, ignoring the signs telling him he’d be fined if he left his car there.

The Alliance could foot the bill—they owed him that much for his service.

Practically dragging his cane behind him, Shepard hurried up to the front desk where a group of men and women were busy poking away at screens and talking into their omni-tools. The smell of antiseptic and shitty coffee sunk into Shepard’s chest, but he pushed past the overwhelming urge to vomit and instead took his panic attack out on the first person to make eye contact with him.

“Hello, sir, how can I—” the man began, before Shepard cut him off.

“I need to know where a Major Kaidan Alenko is,” he said—or practically yelled.

“Alright, sir, let me just… oh.”

“Oh?” Shepard repeated, voice cracking.

“He’s top clearance—I’ll need a name before—”

“Shepard. John Shepard.”

The man paused, eyes flicking up to meet his. And there it was—that recognition that Shepard hated seeing in others. The reason he never came here; the reason he avoided public life as much as possible.

Behold your famed Commander Shepard, Saviour of the Citadel, Defender of Humanity, and War Hero, now a frail, scarred, mess of a man, who clung to the counter and gripped his cane, anxiety medication pumping through him.

Behold the rotting corpse of what once was.

“He’s in unit 7-C, room 23,” the secretary said.

Shepard nodded and left the counter, shoulders hunched as he headed toward the elevators. Security looked at him but then turned the other way, seemingly content to let him go without a pat-down.

Stepping into the elevator Shepard’s anxiety returned to Kaidan, and he jammed the button for the seventh floor again and again, hoping it would speed things up despite knowing it wasn’t going to do a damn.  

Flashes of his injuries on Mars bounced around in Shepard’s head, and he gripped his cane harder, holding back the scream that threatened to rip from his throat. If he lost Kaidan—if something happened to Kaidan…

Shepard would die with him.

The ‘ping’ of the elevator doors shook Shepard from his thoughts, and he hurried out and down the hallway, cane making a heavy ‘thunk’ noise as he neared room 23. Keeping his head ducked, he avoided the gazes of the nurses, doctors, and patients as he approached the door, steeling himself for what he was going to see.

Whirling around the corner and into the room, Shepard’s breath hitched as he gazed upon Kaidan.

He was sitting on the edge of the neatly made bed, fully clothed in Alliance workout clothing, omni-tool lighting up his furrowed brow as he typed a message. Other than his hair being slightly messy, and a bluish purple tinge around his eye, Kaidan looked the picture of perfect health.

“K,” Shepard managed to get out.

Kaidan glanced up, furrowed brow relaxing, replaced by surprise.

“What are you—”

Shepard strode forward and enveloped Kaidan in a hug, clinging to him like a man caught in a storm in the middle of the ocean. Burrowing his face into the crook of his neck, Shepard took a deep breath, trying to steady himself. Kaidan smelled of Alliance soap and antiseptic.

“I-I got a call,” he mumbled against Kaidan’s neck. “They said you’d been in an accident and I… I… Jesus, K. I thought…”

Kaidan was rubbing his back—up and down, up and down—strong arms holding him close as Shepard tried his hardest not to fucking _cry_. Relief washed over him, and he felt his legs giving way. Kaidan kept him upright.

“Hey, it’s okay… it’s all okay,” Kaidan cooed, lips pressed against Shepard’s ear. “I’m completely fine.”

Lifting his head, Shepard cupped Kaidan’s face and soaked him all in—from the greys on his temples to the warmth in those whiskey brown eyes. He did, indeed, have a black eye, but Shepard couldn’t care less about that. He was okay—Kaidan was okay.

“What happened?” he asked.

“You know those new students I got in?”

Shepard nodded.

“One of them had been practicing beforehand. Hit me with a pretty wicked biotic kick and sent me into a wall.”

“Jesus, K…”

Kaidan was smiling. “It was pretty impressive.”

“And you’re okay?”

“Bruised shoulder and a black eye, but my barrier protected me for the most part. I just came up here to get my amp looked at. Just in case, you know? But it’s completely fine— _I’m_ completely fine. The kid is good, but he’s not that good.”

Shepard went in for another hug and had no intention of letting go. Some punk-ass fucking kid had the audacity to fucking kick _his_ Kaidan? Had Shepard been in a more cognisant frame of mind he’d have realized that he used to _be_ that punk-ass fucking kid who’d relish in showing off his skills. As it was, he just wanted to throttle whoever it was.

“I thought you were seriously fucked up,” Shepard said.

“It’s nothing, John. I’m fine, truly. I didn’t think they’d even call you. I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be sorry,” Shepard chuckled. “You’re too fucking Canadian.”

“Sorry.”

 Pulling away, he allowed Kaidan to brush away the few tears that had slipped past, shoulders sagging as the relief gave way to exhaustion. His leg was burning and his throat felt dry and tense, a headache blossoming from behind two tired eyes. But Kaidan was okay. Kaidan was okay and alive and not bleeding out on some surgery table.

“Did you come here by yourself?” Kaidan asked.

Shepard nodded. “There was no time. I had to… I had to get to you.”

It was then that Shepard became aware of where he was in relation to the room. His back was exposed to the door, and he could feel people passing by. Strangers—all of them. But he stayed rooted in place, afraid both to move and to stay where he was.

Kaidan’s fingertips on his pulse point kept him focused.

“You haven’t been at Alliance HQ since… for a while,” Kaidan said.

Shepard nodded.

Since he’d been ‘honourably discharged’ and left to flounder.

“Want a tour?” Kaidan asked. He cocked his head to the side, a small, hopeful smile tugging at the corners of his mouth.

Shepard wanted to go home; he wanted to return to his safe little bubble where no one could touch him or see him; he wanted to live the rest of his years away from prying eyes and dangerous intentions…

Mostly, he just wanted to rest.

But he was here now, and Kaidan’s life at the Alliance—everything he’d been working on since the last Reaper fell—had remained a mystery to Shepard. Shepard wanted to share in Kaidan’s accomplishments; he wanted to be a part of Kaidan’s world outside of his bubble, and he wanted to know what Kaidan was talking about when he came home each day.

But mostly, Shepard wanted to be done with the fear—at least for today.

“Sure, I’d like that.”

“Are you sure?”

“I’m sure,” Shepard said, putting on his best stiff-upper lip face.

“If it gets too much I can—” Kaidan began, but Shepard cut him off.

“I’m here with you,” Shepard said when they broke apart. “I’ll be fine as long as you’re here.”

Kaidan kissed him, and in that moment Shepard felt like he could take on the world.

  

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading~ Check out my tumblr at lorastyrell.com!


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